Tiny our TL nitpick allowed?
The German citizenship laws were changed years ago. From "blood" to "soil". Just thought I´d mention it once.
I remember that change - meaning that its a recent change.
And it's not really "soil". You can be born in Germany, lived there for decades, speak the language and have a university degree yet still you do not necessarily have citizenship.
And there's still a large "blood" aspect in how children of mixed German-Non-German parents or children born abroad are treated - far larger than in many other citizenship laws around the globe. In fact I'm not sure if all around the globe a kid will always get citizenship if one of its parents is a citizen - certainly in Western countries, but elsewhere?
German colonies in Africa - with the exception of South West Africa - already had an obligatory school attendance system including native children.
Including both missionary schools and government schools. Primary, secondary and vocational schools. Plus farming colleges.
Thanks for pointing that out!
It does not, however, invalidate my idea. The Germans wouldn't accept anybody as a citizen simply because he's gone through primary education in Cameroon. They might accept someone with university or college level education, though - even without him (or her) being in the military. At least the moderates could support that to decrease the conservative vote. I guess those public schools were mostly far away from providing the base of college level education? Thus more church-run and trade-union/SPD-run gymnasiums may come up, offering the chance to get to citizenship by education? The form of education you'd need to establish a (German speaking) middle class in the colonies.
The only exception was the "settler" colony South West Africa. As in (this TL former British colony) South Africa the somewhat larger group of German settlers and Dutch Boers in South West Africa didn´t favor education for the natives.
There was even a fight between the Colonial Office in Berlin/Germany and the local authorities in German South West Africa.
Given the scarcity of European women many men married native women. Which the local colonial administration refused to recognize as legal and official. The Colonial Office ordered them to recognize these marriages. Resulting in obedience at first and then passive resistance. Meaning that 1-2 years later the original problem resurfaced.
My guess is that this already butterflied away to some extent. In preparation of the outposts and native troops, the Germans already had to change their policies with respect to the natives. Now with the war and more and more natives becoming citizens this will change further.
It´s much more likely that some colonies will become independent while others choose to become a state in Germany.
Absolutely. Even if policies regarding the natives have changed, racism will still be widespread. A stipend system that gets more and more blacks into Germany (likely supported by the moderates in the Reichstag, but also by the military needing experts) will help this. It should also increase the number of mixed marriages in Germany proper, increasing its acceptance overall. The gradual approach of more and more blacks entering the legislature will do the same: there'll be a couple of thousand new citizens in Africa soon. those will marry, have children, will be joined by new recruits and citizens which got the franchise thanks to maneuvering of the moderate parties. Still, this will take years to have an effect - good to get used to it for the average German. As I don't see major independence movements threatening German rule within the next 30 years, you have a whole generation to get accustomed to Black politicians. Now if you had Southwest becoming a state within 10 years - which is possible IMHO - that will only smoothen that accustomization. It would be cool to have a Prime Minister of a state sitting in the secondary chamber with mixed Jewish-Herero ancestry in 1950...
The basic idea therefore is to get a black minority to Germany, and a mixed white-black state in Africa soon. That increases the chances of having a black majority state accepted, and thus increases the overall chances of colonies staying within Germany. The rest may go into a commonwealth with the Emperor as head of state.
Note though that ITTL, economic ties of Germany to its colonies will be very tight, simply because the colonial economies will be far higher developped. It's thus most likely that the independent colonies enter a free trade zone and also keep the Reichsmark as currency. And thanks to that development the independent nations should have a larger middle class, speaking Germany at least as secondary language. That makes the independent states politically more stable and binds them culturally to Germany.
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Considering emmigration of Eastern Jews/other refugees: So far, BlondieBC concentrated on voluntary migration - which worked fine so far. I doubt though that the majority of Jewish migration will be completely voluntary. The problem will soon be that their homelands don't want to keep them, and Germany or Austria won't accept them all - at least not in Galicia and Traken-Memelland. Shipping them to the colonies is something different, though...
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